Pay no attention to the people behind the curtain

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Scott Walker is a damn liar

by folkbum

Or, at least, Jill Bader, Walker's communications director and email scribe, is*. (Bader was last seen two weeks ago cheering on a bogus investigation of our friend capper that, to date, has resulted in wasted taxpayer dollars at the DA's office but not a single substantiated charge. Way to back a winner, Jill!)

Some smartass (to borrow a word) signed me up for Walker's email updates at some point so I got tonight's missive. It's about jobs--isn't everything?--and in it, Bader makes a ridiculous claim. "Scott won't sacrifice your job to score political points," Bader writes, apparently because putting people out of work is what Republicans imagine Democrats like to do.

What's funn-- No, not funny. It's actually pretty awful. What's awful about it is that Scott Walker has made a career out of sacrificing people's jobs to score political points. It's one of just two or three plays Walker has in his playbook (the others are "Call Charlie" and "Make a goofy commercial.")

(Also, I am still waiting for Walker to speak up for the 1000 or so people just laid off from my employer--something he can't do because he actually scores political points with his base by shutting up about it.)

But here is a partial list of jobs that Walker has sacrificed in his time as Milwaukee County Executive:

All of the security guards at courthouses and other buildings

All housekeeping staff

All food service jobs

Most of the parks workers

Staff at BHD: nurses, CNAs, specialized therapists and doctors

Clerical staff who help the few remaining county workers get the job done

Highway workers

Firefighters at the airport

Economic Support staff (until the state takeover)

However many people lost their jobs when 20,000 of them had their transit routes cut off

And every time this has happened, Walker has trumpeted his decisions as sound and responsible and evidence why he should be running things rather than the Democrats or David Reimer or Lena Taylor.

So what nerve does Scott Walker think he has that he can make promises like this, make claims about his job credibility? Because he has none. None! And to top it off, the email is begging for money on the premise that the jobs that may be lost at Bucyrus will be lost because of the policies and almost at the behest of Tom Barrett--though Barrett, of course, has publicly announces he'll be pleading Bucyrus's case personally to the president tomorrow.

So, to recap: Scott Walker blames Tom Barrett (no politicization, there!) for job losses that Barrett is trying hard to stop. And Scott Walker claims he won't "sacrifice" any jobs for "political points," though he has done that repeatedly over the last ten years. How did he get to be the standard-bearer for the GOP?

* Bader is also bad at grammar: "That’s why Scott sent a letter to the president, urging the reversal of policies to 'curbs global warming' at the cost of good paying American jobs."